About the Volumes: The original Le Règne Animal (The Animal Kingdom), issued 1816-1829, is the most famous work of the French naturalist Baron Georges Cuvier. It set out to describe the natural structure of the whole of the animal kingdom based on comparative anatomy, and its natural history. Cuvier divided the animals into four embranchements, namely vertebrates, molluscs, articulated animals (arthropods and annelids), and zoophytes (cnidaria and other phyla).

The 3rd Edition of Règne Animal of 1836—1849, known as 'The Disciples Edition' was completely reworked & vastly improved. It contained some of the most exquisite Natural History engravings ever made. These plates were completely new engravings, done in the 'Stipple' technique, which imparts a soft shading & modeling that traditional line engravings didn't. They were comparable to, & often exceeded in execution & accuracy, the nearly contemporaneous Charles D'Orbigny's Dictionnaire Universel d'Histoire Naturelle. It's from this exceedingly rare & sought-after set that this listed engraving comes.

The drawing, compositions, accuracy, detail work in the stipple-engraving, the coloring  'A La poupee' (colored in the plate) & hand-finishing are exquisite. This is a truly remarkable, stunning, & very scarce plate.

The Editors: The twelve "disciples" who contributed to the 3rd edition were Jean Victor Audouin (insects), Gerard Paul Deshayes (molluscs), Alcide d'Orbigny (birds), Antoine Louis Dugès (arachnids), Georges Louis Duvernoy (reptiles), Charles Léopold Laurillard (mammals in part), Henri Milne Edwards (crustaceans, annelids, zoophytes, and mammals in part), Francois Desire Roulin (mammals in part), Achille Valenciennes (fishes), Louis Michel François Doyère (insects), Charles Émile Blanchard (insects, zoophytes) and Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau (annelids, arachnids etc.).

The work was illustrated with tables and plates (at the end of Volume IV) covering only some of the species mentioned. A much larger set of illustrations, said by Cuvier to be "as accurate as they were elegant" was published by the entomologist Félix Édouard Guérin-Méneville in his Iconographie du Règne Animal de G. Cuvier, the nine volumes appearing between 1829 and 1844. The 448 quarto plates by Christophe Annedouche, Canu, Eugène Giraud, Lagesse, Lebrun, Vittore Pedretti, Plée and Smith illustrated some 6200 animals.

Every part of these prints was made by hand: Hand drawn & engraved on Copper or steel which was hand-mined, smelted & rolled, printed onto handmade cotton rag paper, inked & colored with hand-ground pigments individually by hand, & they were usually hand sewn into handmade leather-bound books.

Condition: Appears to be in excellent condition for a centuries-old engraving. The hand-coloring appears to remain sharp & brilliant as the day it was painted. Typical slight age-toning & character for a print this old.  Please peruse the detailed photos. Printed on heavy, creamy paper with strong plate-marks.

These prints are very old & may have minor imperfections expected with age, such as some typical age-toning of the paper, oxidation of the old original watercolors, spots, text-offsetting, artifacts from having been bound into a book, etc. Please examine the photos & details carefully.

Text Page(s): This one comes without original text page(s).

About these gorgeous creatures:

• Goliathus goliatus is a very large species of beetle of the family Scarabaeidae, native to tropical Africa. It is one of the largest species in the genus Goliathus, males having a body length of 50–110 millimetres (2.0–4.3 in) and females having a body length of 54–80 millimetres.
• Trichius fasciatus, the Eurasian bee beetle, is a beetle species belonging to the family Scarabaeidae, subfamily Cetoniinae
• Platygenia barbata (Afzelius, 1817) is widespread throughout West and Central Africa being associated to the palm Elaeis guineensis and Borassus sp.
• Gymnetis is a genus of beetles of the family Scarabaeidae and subfamily Cetoniinae.
• Cetonia aurata, called the rose chafer or the green rose chafer, is a beetle, 20 millimetres (3⁄4 in) long, that has a metallic structurally coloured green and a distinct V-shaped scutellum. Rose chafers are capable of fast flight; they fly with their wing cases down. They feed on pollen, nectar, and flowers, especially roses. They can be found among roses on warm sunny days from May until June or July, and occasionally as late as September. Rose chafers are found in southern and central Europe and in the southern part of the United Kingdom, where they sometimes seem to be very localized. They can also be found in South East Asia, in the countryside and outlying islands of Hong Kong. They are a beneficial saprophagous species

Size: 10-1/2" x 6-1/2" inches approximately.

Shipping: Multiple prints combine into one USPS Flat-Rate envelope. If you'd like to combine & need more time to choose, please send a message & we'll do our best to oblige. If you're assessed multiple shipping for one combined package, we'll endeavor to refund any overage asap.

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